


Hiding an Injury

by Callaeidae3



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Post Season 7, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:42:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callaeidae3/pseuds/Callaeidae3
Summary: BTHB: Hiding an InjuryKeith breaks a rib falling down a flight of stairs at the Garrison and tries to act like he's fine.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by @shinyhunterkate! :) Bingo prompts are from my BTHB card on Tumblr @callaeidae3!

The cadet smirks. “Bye, Galra,” he says, then shoves Keith hard in the shoulders.

Shiro rounds the corner of the stairwell a second too late. “Hey!”

Colours and shadows blur, the cadets flee and Keith hits the stairs hard. Something in his side gives but there’s pain everywhere and he’s tumbling downwards and the best he can do is shield his head with his arms. Hands and a knee bring him to a dizzying stop and the pain in his side flares.

Keith opens his eyes slowly, the shadows still turning. Stairs hurt. Thankfully nothing seems broken, though. He sits up, wincing. A stab in his right side. He shifts a little and pain radiates throughout his shoulder.

_Stupid stairs…_

Shiro’s brow furrows. “Keith, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I’m fine.”

Shiro doesn’t look convinced but Keith isn’t in the mood to put up with his protectiveness. It’s his fault he fell; he should’ve seen that push coming. His side hurts pretty badly but it’s nothing he can’t bear with. A few bruises and a day or two of being sore is nothing compared to some of the other injuries he’s sustained over the course of the last three years.

“I’m fine, Shiro,” Keith says again. “Come on. Someone’s not going to be happy if we’re late to the meeting.”

He pushes himself up and starts up the stairs again. He’s limping, he knows, but thankfully Shiro doesn’t say anything about it. Breathing hurts more than it probably should but Keith just grimaces and ignores it the best he can. As soon as he’s sitting down in the meeting room it’ll be better. He just has to make it up this flight of stairs and walk five minutes down the hallway.

_Easy peasy._

The cadets are nowhere to be seen. It’s the first show of racism Keith’s had since being back, but then again he hasn’t been out of hospital long and when they first arrived back on Earth Voltron hadn’t mingled much with the students. Krolia hadn’t been here then, though.

It’s probably common knowledge now that she’s his mother. Yes, Earth was attacked by Galra and not one person here isn’t affected in some way by that, but it’s incredibly frustrating that a place where people of many different ethnicities and backgrounds would decide to let racism fester in the air. Keith hasn’t forgotten how Allura treated him when she found out he was half Galra and now that old wound is starting to bleed again.

Keith’s in a mood now. The pain that shoots through his chest with every footstep, movement and breath doesn’t help. The dry, hacking cough that’s suddenly come over him doesn’t either. He tries to keep it contained but the cough only gets worse and before long he’s stumbling into the wall, gasping.

People stop in the hallway, heads turned towards him. Keith’s face burns. He narrows his eyes, covers his mouth with the back of his hand and straightens up to keep going on his way. The meeting room’s only fifty metres away. As soon as he sits down –

He lurches forward. Shiro catches him as his knees buckle and the pain in Keith’s chest increases with sickening intensity. He cries out at it worsens again.

“I’ll get a nurse!” someone yells.

Shiro lies him down his left side. The cold floor is a good distraction but it’s not enough. The coughs only get worse and with each one of them his body jerks, sending a fresh wave of pain rippling through his chest and shoulder. Keith swallows hard and tries to stop them. It doesn’t work.

“Hey, give them space.”

“On your way, cadets.”

“It’s okay, Keith,” Shiro murmurs. “Help will be here really soon.”

“Shiro, what’s – what the – _Keith,_ are you okay?”

Voices he doesn’t know he zones out. The others’ voices blend together. Keith hones in on Shiro’s, the only voice besides Krolia’s he trusts to keep him steady. His own voice comes in panicked, scared gasps and he doesn’t like it but he’s so far removed from it there’s nothing he can do to stop himself making those sounds. Shiro keeps a hold of his hand, clenched tight as it is, and holds his head off the ground with his prosthetic hand. It hums slightly and it’s somewhat grounding.

Help comes in the form of foreign voices and hands touching him. Keith doesn’t like it. Questions are asked but he can’t answer them. His brain won’t formulate a reply and he doesn’t have enough breath to say anything coherently. Shiro keeps talking to him, keeps a hold of his hand as they roll him onto his back and he chokes on a scream.

A mask on his face. It doesn’t make it any easier to breathe. He’s being lifted into the air, presumably on a stretcher, and it’s nauseating. Shiro lets go of his hand. Terror grips him. Pain is the only thing he really knows.

Noises and bright lights. A prick in his arm. He’s losing consciousness but the pain remains. He fights. He can’t let go, he can’t –

Shiro’s voice. He fights.

He doesn’t win.

 

 

The beeping is annoying. Sometimes it’s fuzzy, sometimes it sounds like it’s underwater and sometimes it sounds like it’s in his head. But if he concentrates on it for long enough…

Shiro’s face with the backdrop of a panelled ceiling greet him. Keith’s head’s too full of fluff and fog and… some memory of pain he can’t quite remember all that clearly to think. He’s exhausted for some reason, doesn’t have the energy to be bothered by the oxygen mask on his face.

There’s a tug kind of feeling in the back of his hand when his fingers twitch, and it’s also present on the right side of his chest every time he breathes, although it’s a different kind of tug…pull…pinch…thing…

“How’re you feeling, Keith?” Shiro asks.

Only now he realises that Shiro’s holding his hand again. Normally he’d hate it, but it’s grounding and he needs it right now with how sore and confused he is. He feels like he’s had all the energy wrung out of him like…

“…like a mop.”

_Oh, I said that out loud._

Shiro stares at him blankly then laughs. “Like a mop?”

Keith frowns. “Hmm…”

Curious, he turns his head to look around. The beeping, which is still going steadily, is coming from a heart monitor. There’s an IV hooked up to him as well, and a weird tube thing running into the side of his chest doing whatever it’s doing. Keith can’t think of why he needs it.

“You have a punctured lung,” Shiro says. “Remember falling down the stairs?”

Keith drags his eyes away from the chest tube to look at Shiro. “Stairs?”

“Hmm. You broke a rib.”

“…what’s that got to do with stairs?”

His words are barely more than a mumble of syllables. Miraculously, Shiro gets what he means.

“When you hit the stairs,” Shiro explains, “one of your ribs broke. It ended up puncturing your right lung, that’s why you were hurting so badly.”

Keith doesn’t understand where the pain went, though. “H-how long?”

“How long were you out?”

“Hnnn… I guess?”

“It’s been almost two hours since they put you under. You came out of surgery not that long ago.”

It’s all confusing. Why was he in surgery when he was supposed to be at a meeting? The generals are going to be mad, aren’t they? The leader of Voltron, not at the meeting. Shiro’s probably going to get in trouble too. He looks tired, so he’s probably been here with Keith the whole time, or at least, for the most part.

“Trains…?” Keith blurts out.

“Huh?”

“Why’re we s’ppose’ to have a meeting ‘bout trains?”

Shiro chuckles. “Train _ing_. And don’t worry about the meeting. They ended up going ahead with it since all the generals were there and Lance stepped in for you.”

“Oh….”

That pain’s returning. Not as strong as it had been, but strong enough to be uncomfortable and stressing. Keith frowns a little harder, corner of his mouth twitching.

“Do you want some painkillers?” Shiro asks quietly.

“I’m fine.”

“Yep, of course you are. That’s why you’re lying in a hospital bed right now, right?”

Keith grunts. It hurts and he winces.

“Are you going to be stubborn or shall I ask the nurse for – ”

“Fine. Fine, jus’… whatever.”

Shiro smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You’re allowed to not be okay… you know that, right? Being leader of Voltron doesn’t change that.”

“I know.”

“You were going to sit there and suffer in silence, weren’t you? In the meeting room.”

“What about it? You…you would’ve, too. Pretend you’re fine when you’re not. I’m not the one hiding an injury here, Shiro – you are.”

He’s rambling and he doesn’t realise what he’s said until he sees Shiro’s face fall. He stills, eyes widening a little. He’s been exposed. Keith might be stubborn when it comes to admitting when he’s not feeling so good, but so is Shiro. They’re as bad as each other, hiding the pain they’re going through.

But Keith’s seen it, the way Shiro’s shoulders slouch in the mornings. The lines beneath his eyes getting longer. The way he zones out in meetings sometimes, clutching on to a distant memory or being sucked back into one.

Shiro grimaces, lets go of Keith’s hand and stands up. “I, uh…I’ll go see the nurse for you.”

Keith watches him go through half-lidded eyes. He smirks a little and then sighs. They’re as bad as each other, alright.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith talks to the cadets who pushed him down the stairs and realises he's become more like Shiro than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found there was a little more I could write for this, so here it is!

Keith’s released the next day. His chest and shoulder ache, and when it comes to changing back into the shirt of his Garrison uniform, he has to ask Shiro to help him - Shiro, who has been oddly quiet and refused to go to the follow-up meeting that was held this morning in favour of making sure that nothing went wrong when the chest tube was removed.

_Self-blame. So that’s what this is._

Shiro watches him carefully as they leave the medical ward. It feels like deja vu, having only been released from here the other week. He knows Shiro’s still a little mad at himself for not being able to protect everyone better and no matter how many times Keith tells him it’s not his fault, it does nothing to stop that misplaced guilt from circling back around to attack him all over again.

“I’m fine, Shiro,” Keith murmurs. He has a broken rib and he suffered an injury that could’ve been fatal yesterday, so really he’s not fine. He’s not saying it for himself though.

Shiro raises an eyebrow. He frowns hard and doesn’t comment as they make their way to the only working elevator in this side of the building. He jabs at the up arrow.

“You’re not fine,” he says tightly.

Keith automatically goes to fold his arms but reconsiders. “Neither are you.”

“You could’ve died.”

“You already did.”

Shiro grunts, an involuntary smile flickering over his face. “I’ll give you that one.”

The elevator opens. A junior officer takes one look at their serious expressions, salutes and dances around them as quick as she can. Keith is glad she didn’t hang around. He has no idea how he should respond.

When they get out on the next floor up, they find Iverson waiting for them.

“You’re always finding some kind of trouble, aren’t you?” the Commander says.

Keith finds the pockets of his pants and digs his hands into them. “Yeah…”

“Glad you’re okay. Now, the cadets who pushed you down the stairs yesterday are waiting over in the fourth meeting room over there. If you’re up for it, I think it’d be good if you could have a talk with them.”

“... a talk, sir?” Keith frowns. “I don’t…”

Iverson glances at Shiro and narrows his eye. “Just a talk.”

Now Keith understands why he hasn’t seen Krolia around much. Apparently she came in to see him yesterday but the painkillers the nurse had given him must’ve knocked him out before she got there. She’s probably been advised to let the Garrison handle speaking to the cadets and judging by the gleam in even Shiro’s eyes, Keith can guess why.

He sighs. “I’ll, uh… I’ll give it a go.”

Iverson nods. “If they don’t apologise, I want to hear it. I’ll be just down the hallway.” He gives Shiro a stern look. “Let Keith do the talking, Shiro. The cadets have been lectured already.”

Shiro forces a smile. “So they should have.”

Clearing a path between the people walking back and forth up and down the hallway, Shiro leads them to the meeting room Iverson mentioned. The two cadets wait with their backs to the wall, facing the table and chairs. They’re muttering between themselves when Shiro and Keith enter, but as soon as Shiro leans against the doorway and Keith’s shoes squeak on the floor they fall dead silent. Their faces pale when they see Keith.

Keith walks stiffly up to them, expression neutral. Unsure of whether or not to do so, the cadets glance at each other nervously before pulling a messy and unsynchronized click of the heels and raised hand in salute. Shiro watches them like a hawk from the doorway.

"Hello." Keith rests some of his weight on a desk behind him, careful not to slouch as he half-sits. "I'm not here to lecture you, or get angry. I'm sure you've had plenty of that. I just want to you to ask yourselves if it was necessary to go out of your way to confront me and get me injured like this?"

The cadets don't answer. Shiro mutters something about being at ease and they finally stop saluting.

Oh...is that what they were waiting for...

"He's waiting for an answer, cadets," Shiro says tightly.

Keith's brow furrows. "Shiro..."

"W-we heard that you're Galra, s-sir," the cadet on the left stammers. She blinks. "'Sir'?"

"'Keith' is fine."

"R-right...Keith, sir." She gulps, face going red and pale all at once. "I'm sorry!"

Beside her, the kid who actually pushed Keith down the stairs is quiet. He averts his eyes with Keith looks at him, and scowls, eyes gleaming. It's not with hate though and it's not fear....that expression is a defense mechanism Keith knows far too well.

He stands up, nods at the girl and moves in front of the guy. "Hey."

The guy pointedly looks away. Keith sees Shiro take a step forward in his periphery and subtly shakes his hand at his side. Shiro goes back to leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey, I'm not mad," Keith murmurs. "I know a lot of people are and I know I should be one of them, but to be honest... I'm just disappointed.

“I know there are a lot of Galra out there who have done terrible things. I can't tell you how relieved I am knowing that Sendak is no longer a threat. But if you think taking out your anger for their wrongdoing on someone who is of the same race as them is going to make you feel better or stop things from hurting so much, you're wrong. Did it feel good taking down Sendak? I mean, I'm relieved he's dead and he had to be taken down at some point, but...it didn't make me happy, if you get what I'm saying. It didn't make up for all the hurt he's caused us all."

The atmosphere is still tense, but there’s a quiet that’s settled in the room that wasn’t there before. Even Shiro’s looking a little more relaxed. The cadets wait silently for Keith to continue but there’s no more words he can think of.

With an awkward cough, Keith tries his best at a smile despite how tired he is. He extends a hand, the one on the opposite side of himself to his broken rib and waits for the cadet who pushed him down the stairs to take it.

“Can we put this behind us?” he asks.

The cadet looks up, confused. Meeting Keith’s gaze turns out to be a scary ordeal though, apparently, and he quickly looks away but takes his hand nonetheless. Keith gives a soft handshake and then turns to the other cadet to do the same. She accepts his hand warily, brow furrowed.

 “Alright, well….” Keith murmurs. “That’s all I have to say. Try not to cause any more trouble, okay?”

Neither cadet says anything. They study the floor as though it bewilders them. Keith glances between them and Shiro, says an awkward goodbye and then shuffles out of the room. The cadets don’t utter even a whisper.

“How about that, Team Leader?” Shiro says, grinning. “Never thought you could lead a team and give a speech.”

Keith laughs, though he hastily stops when the pain in his side flares. “I sounded like you.”

“I told you already you could do it – that you’d make a great leader. I’m proud of you, Keith.”

_‘You have real nerve questioning someone’s leadership seeing as you left us!’_

They report in with Iverson, Shiro joking that Keith stunned them with his speech, but all Keith can hear are the things the others said to him while they were stuck in that void….mindspace…thing.

_‘Maybe you should’ve just stayed away.’_

_‘You guys just don’t know how to handle being scared.’_

And here Keith was earlier thinking of talking to Shiro about hiding his hurt. _I guess we’re both still working on not blaming ourselves,_ he thinks now. _We both fear letting other people down, especially each other. We’re brothers – the last thing we want to do is disappoint or fail to watch out for each other._

Forgiving each other they can do readily enough, but forgiving themselves is a different story.

_Guess it’s going to take us a while to learn..._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The cadets were found out and earned themselves several weeks of cleaning and mandatory lectures in Social Studies and History.


End file.
